


Alone With His Thoughts

by CrystalChameleon (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 02:39:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15698427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/CrystalChameleon
Summary: Lance is left alone with his thoughts a lot. They aren't the nicest to him, but he does his best to ignore the silence and continue home.





	Alone With His Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> I literally suck at titles and summaries, don't I?

Most days were tedious now. Traveling in space for a year tended to be like that, Lance guessed. When the paladins weren’t resting on a random planet, they would be in their lions which would be full of people. Sometimes the rides would be quiet, like with Cosmo or any of the other animals, but that usually just meant more time to think. After their run-in with Bob, time to think wasn’t very nice to Lance. Time to think meant time to remember. Time to remember what he was called and how no one disagreed. Sure, he might not be as smart as Pidge or Hunk, but he tried! It wasn’t his fault that the games were rigged or that Keith was a bad artist! Just because he can’t guess things right all the time doesn’t make him dumb. Does it? The more he thought about it, he realized the others could guess and almost always got it right, yet he just wasted their time.

The days where he had guests weren’t any better. Romelle and Coran were loud and would always speak in Altean so Lance couldn’t join it. He could have tolerated that if Allura hadn’t joined in over the comms. Krolia wasn’t too bad compared to them, but she would only truly talk to Keith. When she was in the red lion, the only times she talked were to comment on how Lance was flying or things he could improve upon. That combined with his thinking during the silence would just make his situation worse. All he could think about was how they could be lost, how much he held them back, or how Earth might not even be there by the time they get home. The days he thought about that were the worst.

Most days they rested were tiring. That’s a bit ironic, but it was true. Lance would always try to help, but he would be told away or would not know what to do. The team eventually just stopped letting him help and he stopped asking. No one really noticed that he was sitting alone after a few days, giving him more silence to think. It took even longer for them to realize that something was wrong. The year of traveling had slowly gone by and they arrived on Earth, only to have everything changing and have to fight their hardest battle yet. Lance’s family was there for him where he woke up, but he wasn’t oblivious to how many people weren’t there anymore.

His siblings were the first ones to notice the change. They pointed out how quiet Lance became if no one was talking to him, how distance his gaze would be. Lance would just smile at them and joke, trying to change the subject away from it. Once things got calm, the team would gather again to just hang out together. Keith was the first to notice after his siblings. The former red paladin pulled the present one aside one day and confronted him about his changes. Keith was persistent where the McClain siblings were not and Lance couldn’t hide from it anymore.

He looked down at his feet and let everything slip. Every time he’d grown further from the team, the times he’s almost died, the hurt feelings after their game show. Everything that was on his mind was hurriedly explained in an empty hallway, his only comfort being Keith after he was pulled into his arms. Keith did he best to calm Lance down and quietly reassured him about what he was told. He told him about all the times he was proud of his teammate and all the times he’d felt sorry about what he said. The last thing he mentioned was his answers on the game show. Although he had meant to pick Lance to save, his reasoning wasn’t exactly the truth.   
After hearing the whole story, Lance sniffles and wiped his eyes before walking into the room with Keith. The team finally noticed. They slowly pieced things together and did their best to reconcile with their friend. It took much longer than that one group session, but slowly, the brightness returned to Lance’s eyes. The pain was still there, in the back of his mind, but whenever he thought too hard about it he would return to his friends and tune the silence out.


End file.
